


That's, Like, Sixteen Walls

by phoenixyfriend



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Breaking the Fourth Wall, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-30
Updated: 2017-04-30
Packaged: 2018-10-25 21:06:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10772436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoenixyfriend/pseuds/phoenixyfriend
Summary: Lance isn't sure when this started, but the fourth wall just keeps getting thinner. He's been leaning on it for a while, but something's gotta give, and let's face it:The fourth wall is a fragile, fragile thing.





	That's, Like, Sixteen Walls

**Author's Note:**

> Remember that scene in Season 2 where Lance is explaining the plan to take on Zarkon with the Blade of Marmora?
> 
> There's a half-second where he _shakes the camera_.
> 
> That's it. That's the only reason I've written this. Lance broke the wall for a second so I decided to fucking SHATTER IT.

“I mean, it’s all probably going to work out anyway,” Lance said, almost like he believed it.

“We’ve lost Shiro,” Keith growled. “He might as well be dead, and you think it’s all going to be okay?”

Lance shrugged, and waited for Keith to leave the room. He let his head drop back against his hands, staring at the ceiling.

There was that little void spot he’d noticed following them all around sometimes. Nobody else seemed to see it, and Lance had been getting enough odd feelings, odd _vibes_ , from it that he thought he knew what it was now.

“Well, he seems like the kind of person that would be a fan favorite. I doubt the writers are going to kill him off like _that._ ”

o.o.o.o.o

“Hey, you. Yeah, you, come down here.”

Lance watched the void spot float down a little closer, then grabbed it by the sides and pulled it close, shaking it. “Stop.”

The void spot tilted to one side, then the other. Questioning.

“Don’t follow me into the shower, it’s creepy.”

The void spot dropped a little, tilting forwards.

“Are you _pouting?”_

The void spot bounced.

“Oh my god.”

o.o.o.o.o

“This isn’t some… some stupid mech anime where the protagonists just win with the power of friendship, Pidge!” Hunk yelled, looking like he was on the verge of a panic attack. “This is a war! A real, actual war!”

“You think I don’t know that? You think I’m not spending hours a day worrying over whether my dad, my brother, and Shiro are already dead and I’m just chasing corpses? You think I’m not spending every fight hoping that it’s not going to be somebody’s last?”

“Then stop treating it like a game!”

“I’m not!”

Keith looked over at Lance and frowned. “You’re not interfering.”

“Hm?”

“You’d usually be trying to break this up. What gives?”

“…Just something Hunk said.”

“What?”

“Well, he’s right. It’s not an anime. Just… it used to be.”

“Aaaaand this is where I leave the conversation.”

o.o.o.o.o

Lance fought to keep his smile in place as he heard the music swell. He had Keith’s hand in his own, had a fragile smile on his face and hope in his heart and the music was going to _ruin everything_.

It was really hard to take things seriously with mood music, especially when nobody else could hear it.

“Lance?” Ah, shit. Keith looked worried.

“It’s fine. I’m just…” stop it with the strings _just stop_ it’s distracting as _fuck_ “glad you’re okay.”

o.o.o.o.o

He was a little woozy with blood loss, he’d admit that. Very much in the zone of not knowing what he was talking about anymore. Everyone looked a little worried.

“Relax, guys. None of this is real anyway.” Lance coughed into a fist, focusing on the blood. “Man, do you think they’re going to render that in the right shade of red? Cartoons always get it wrong.”

“He’s delirious,” Pidge said, even as Hunk picked him up to carry him back to the castle. “Lance? Lance, stay with me!”

“Relax, Pidgeon, I’m not gonna die in a _filler episode_. What do you take me for?”

o.o.o.o.o

“Look me in the eye,” Keith demanded, grabbing the back of Lance’s head and practically slamming their foreheads together. “And tell me that—”

“Sssssh.” Lance put a finger to Keith’s lips, going crosseyed as he looked into Keith’s eyes. “Do you hear that?”

“Hear _what?_ ”

“All the screaming fangirls. They’re going nuts over this.”

Keith stared at him for a moment, then scoffed in disgust and turned away, leaving. “You’re a jackass.”

“Insulting me will only fuel the flames of fanfic!” Lance called after him.

The void spot came down to float in front of Lance, coming far too close to his face for comfort.

“Stop zooming in. I know my skin is flawless, but hey! Super creepy. Again.”

 The void spot pulsed.

Lance rolled his eyes.

o.o.o.o.o

“I have a question,” Hunk said, staring at the ceiling as he lay on his back on the couch. “For Coran.”

“Yes? Is something wrong?” Coran looked over, frowning a little.

“Allura said you guys were asleep for ten thousand years. Ignoring the fact that this is a really round number, I’m still confused about how the translation software is working, and how much you know about Earth, because whenever you talk about a tick or a varga, it isn’t translated, but we heard ‘years’ in English, and you somehow knew how long an hour back on Earth was.” Hunk spread out his arms and frowned. “Where’s the consistency?”

Coran actually had an explanation ready, which mostly boiled down to ‘an Altean year is different from an Earth year, but both refer to a planet’s revolution around the sun, and while different in terms of actual time, are conceptually identical’ and ‘the castle did a magic thing and figured out how long an hour is by asking Blue.’

“I wish he’d pointed out an _actual_ plot hole,” Lance said, pouting.

Pidge shot him a weird look, but said nothing.

o.o.o.o.o

“You don’t seem surprised,” Allura said, and Lance practically jumped out of his skin in response.

“Don’t sneak up on me like that!”

She frowned at him. “You should have better situational awareness.”

“Well, excuse me for being distracted by the fact that we got Shiro back? I guess?”

“Distracted, but not surprised.” Allura’s frown deepened. “Not like everyone else was.”

Lance shrugged, uncomfortable. “He was hiding out in the void and couldn’t find a way out. I kind of suspected, so…”

“How?”

“I…” Lance wasn’t sure how to explain that it was because he kept getting flashes of pictures of Shiro hanging out on the Astral Plane, mostly acting like a tourist. “I, uh, remembered his story about fighting Zarkon there while we were at the mall.”

Allura narrowed her eyes, suspicious, but didn’t call him out on it.

Lance breathed out a sigh of relief as she moved away.

o.o.o.o.o

“Okay, but is the dimension in which I break an arm while training today _this_ dimension?” Shiro demanded, leaning over to look a little closer at Slav.

“…I don’t know!”

Shiro pushed a hand up against his own face, hissing out a tired sigh. “Listen, I didn’t really lose a lot of my conditioning while I was out on the Astral Plane, but I’m still out of practice compared to the others. I need to train, and I’m willing to risk a broken arm with the med bay in easy walking distance in exchange for that training. It’s an acceptable risk.”

Lance tilted his head and looked at Slav, who was wringing his hands in worry while Shiro awkwardly patted him on the head as he walked past.

_Huh._

o.o.o.o.o

“We can’t be sure this is a universe where Lotor remains incapable of manipulating quintessence!” Slav insisted. “There are an infinite number of universes!”

“And Keith and I are a couple in a little over half of them, but you don’t see that happening in this universe, now do you?” Lance drawled, glancing over at the void spot.

It circled the room, gaining reactions. It paused in front of Shiro, zooming closer.

Shiro closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Lance, please don’t encourage the… tangents.”

Slav was staring at Lance, though. There was a spark of interest in his eyes, almost excited. “But in 14.91% of universes, Keith ends up with—”

“No!” Lance jolted up and pointed at him. “No! We do not talk about that! Nada, nope, refuse to acknowledge!”

“But there are plenty of realities where—”

“ _I reject your reality and substitute my own!_ ” Lance rushed out, clamping his hands over his ears.

His hands did not stop Pidge’s voice from worming its way into his ears. “What the shit.”

“There are a number of realities where the princess and the black paladin end up a couple!” Slav said, as though trying to fix the situation by bringing up a different kind of weird.

“A little over a tenth,” Lance said, jumping back into the conversation.

“10.44%, actually!” Slav corrected, holding up a finger. “But close!”

“I can’t do the math like you do. I get stuff that’s a lot vaguer,” Lance complained. The void spot flew up to hover a couple yards over him.

“I can’t even,” Hunk said after a long, silent moment. “I don’t even know what’s going on, I just know that _I cannot_.”

“Uh…” Lance looked at his friend, ignoring the void spot with the ease of practice. “Are you—”

“Nope!” Hunk shook his head, holding up a hand with one finger raised as though to forestall questiongs. “You’re apparently understanding what Slav is talking about and I don’t even know how to read into _any_ of that.”

“The void told me.”

It… wasn’t actually a lie. Not really.

The void spot came closer and rotated, like a pet begging for attention.

Lance leaned away from it as casually as he could.

“Lance, that’s enough fooling around. I’m not sure why you find it funny to lie about something like this, but—”

“His numbers aren’t wrong, though! He’s only estimating, but they’re correct!” Slav interrupted.

“While I’d love to believe that,” Coran said delicately, “I’m afraid we haven’t any proof that Lance is also… calculating the possibilities of other realities.”

“I’m not calculating _shit_ ,” Lance immediately protested. “I’m getting vague impressions from the void. Very different. Very annoying.”

“The _void_ is annoying,” Pidge repeated, doubt in her voice.

“ _It tried to follow me into the shower,_ ” Lance hissed. “Do you have any idea how weird that is?”

“The void tried to follow you into the shower,” Pidge parroted back. Doubt was even stronger now.

“Void _spot_ ,” Lance corrected.

“Lance, that’s enough. This isn’t actually funny.” Shiro was rubbing at his temples. “I’m not sure what the joke was supposed to be, but at this point you’ve definitely made more than one person uncomfortable and—what are you doing?”

Lance looked at his hand, which was outstretched and pushing away the void spot, and then back at Shiro. “I promise I’m not trying to be an asshole.”

The void spot pulled away and around, and slammed into the side of his head, knocking him to the ground.

“Fuck!”

“Lance! This is really getting out of hand!” Allura had her hands clenched into fists at her sides, like she usually did when people weren’t listening, just making her frustrated.

“It wasn’t my fault!” Lance was genuinely hurt here. Mostly because he couldn’t blame it on anyone, because the one causing trouble was the fucking _void_. The void of… god, he didn’t even know how to explain it.

“Then explain.”

Lance stared at Allura, then back at the void spot, which kind of spun over itself a few times.

He hadn’t meant to harp on this until it made people mad at him. He just wanted to see if what _he_ saw was the same as what _Slav_ knew, not… not this.

“I’m waiting.”

The void spot bobbed in place and floated closer.

 _Ugh, just fuck off_. Lance went to push it away, ready to just apologize and pretend it was all a joke.

His hand sank into the void.

“What the _fuck_ ,” Pidge said, the first person to react.

Lance closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then opened it and turned to his friends. “So, quick question: what does this look like from your perspective?”

“Your hand is missing from the wrist down,” Coran said. “Are you… alright?”

Lance looked back at the void and pushed his hand a little deeper. “Uh… yeah?”

There was probably a point to this, right? Void spots representing audience perspectives didn’t just _suddenly_ start actually transporting shit to other dimensions for no reason.

His hand sank in almost to the shoulder before his fingers brushed against something.

“This seems like a terrible idea,” Hunk said, breaking the silence. “Like, legitimately terrible. None of us even know what’s going on and Lance is apparently shoving his hand into the void.”

Lance shushed him a little, pushing his arm in just a little further, right up to the shoulder, and grabbing the… picture frame? Huh.

He pulled his hand out, took one look at the picture, and screamed.

He may have also tossed it away from him and flailed a little.

“What the _fuck?_ ” he demanded, staring at the void. “What the actual, everliving _fuck?”_

The silence was deafening.

The void spot bobbed in place. It seemed pleased with itself, inasmuch as a void could.

Pidge slipped out of her chair and walked over to the tossed picture.

“Wait, no, don’t look at—”

“Wow, okay, no.” Pidge jerked back, staring at the photo. She apparently overcame her shock and looked closer. “I don’t think that’s anatomically possible.”

“Pidge, _please put that down._ ” Lance was pretty sure this counted as begging. Did it? “Pidge, I know you probably think this is funny, but you’re—”

“If you tell me I’m not old enough to see nudi—”

“ _I didn’t consent to that being seen!”_ Lance said in a rush. “Or drawn, but I had no control over that and they probably—never mind, just… I’m really uncomfortable right now! I am absolutely, one-hundred percent not okay with this!”

Pidge blinked, visibly stopped herself from glancing down at the picture again, and carefully turned it so that it was pressed against her shirt, where nobody else could see.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

Awkwardly, and fully aware of everyone’s silent gazes asking ‘what the fuck,’ she made her way over to Lance.

“What exactly is it a picture of?” Coran asked carefully. “I understand that this isn’t really something you want to share, but—”

“Something that never happened, but people want to see happen. I mean, it hasn’t happened in _this_ universe. It’s definitely happened in a lot of others, which I wish I didn’t know, but hey! Why not have the void fuck with my head even more?”

Lance waited until Pidge was standing next to him, holding the picture out facedown. He snatched it up as soon as he could and shoved it back into the void spot.

It went back in. Great.

“Pidge?” Shiro asked carefully. “Could you tell us what that was?”

“Uh…” Pidge looked down at Lance, then back at Shiro. Lance could feel his own face heating up, and hoped Pidge wouldn’t go into _too_ much detail. “I’m pretty sure you can make an educated guess based on what we said.”

Lance buried his face in his hands.

The void spot settled just behind his head, gazing out across the room.

“What, was it a photo of him naked or something?” Keith asked, seemingly finally finding his voice. Lance had wondered why he was being so quiet.

(Probably Lance’s fault for mentioning they were together in more universes than not.)

“Um… not a photo?” Pidge’s voice crept higher.

“…someone drew Lance naked?” Allura said cautiously. She sounded much more concerned and less angry than earlier. It probably had something to do with Lance’s arm randomly disappearing.

“….not just him?” Pidge squeaked.

“Pidge!” Lance yelped, sitting up to look at her in offense. “Why?”

“Sorry!” She threw up her hands in apology. “I just… how was I supposed to answer?”

“Just… ju—no, no, not you, you have done _enough._ ” Lance pushed the void spot away again, glaring at it and willing away the headache that came along with the action. “No more helping. You gave me somebody’s hand-drawn gay porn of myself, okay, that is _not helping._ ”

“ _What?”_ Shiro demanded. He sounded appropriately horrified. “Someone did _what?”_

“It’s more complicated than you think!” Lance protested. “Seriously, _way_ more complicated than you—”

“You’re underage!” Shiro was starting to get worked up.

“Wow, that is… not where I was expecting that to go. Um. Okay, it’s still more complicated than you think.” Lance tried to wrap his head around the issue. Huh. “Like, if I had to explain why it was being drawn I’d be thinking in fractals.”

“What does gay porn have to do with iterated geometric constructs?” Hunk asked. He’d been gaping for a while now, but he sounded almost squeaky when he asked this, like the sheer absurdity was getting to him.

“I don’t… hm.” Lance covered his mouth with his hand for a moment. He glanced over at Slav. “You wanna take this one?”

“Oh no, you seem to have it down okay. I would like to know what you’re seeing. It must be fascinating! Maybe making you go a little crazy, though.”

“Greeeat.” Lance huffed as he sat down. “Okay. Just… give me a second.”

He took a deep breath, trying to get the words together properly. “I’m… more used to thinking about this in terms of, like, fan-made works than anything, but there’s probably a mathematical way to put it? But the fan stuff is how it’s sort of… coming to me? I don’t know. Anyway. Um.”

“All multiverses are fictional in one or more others. Or at least, that’s what I’ve been getting from this whole… situation.” He made a face. “Are you following along so far?”

Heads shook all around, though Pidge was tilting her in consideration, and Slav was nodding, hands tucked together.

“Right. So. Maybe an example?” He wracked his head for a way to put it. “Do you know what a fandom is?”

There were enough shaking heads for Lance to groan because he’d have to explain _that_ too. “Okay, so, fandom. It’s like… the collective community of fans of a particular entertainment franchise or work. Bands, movies, books, comics, all that sort of thing. The fandom also refers to the original work and all derivative works. With me so far?”

“So, like, one multiverse is kind of like one work and all of its derivative works. You have the baseline universe, which is what we consider canon, and then all the universes that branch off of it are like fanfiction or whatever. Even full-out AUs, like stuff that shifts the entire plotline into a different century or something. All of that is one fandom, one multiverse.”

“So all multiverses are connected, and there are places where they… kind of brush up against one another? They meld or poke holes in each other and that’s probably what we’d call crossover fic, but I’m getting off-topic. But they are connected! Just… kinda weirdly? Everyone is fiction. To each other. Each multiverse is fiction to at least one or two others. So we’re fictional to some other multiverses, and some of the stuff that we think of as fiction is actually real, out there, somewhere.”

“And like, the level of… I don’t know, causality? The level of causality, the writer influencing the world, and reverse causality, the world influencing the writer, is kind of unknown, but it's kind of like fiction that parallels another universe is a form of ‘looking’ into other dimensions, if that makes sense? And fanfiction is then a kind of… generalized and incomplete but fairly accurate estimate of the manner in which the multiverse sprawls out. So the larger the fandom, the more accurate your percentages are, right?”

“I am so confused right now,” Hunk whispered. “Pidge? Are you getting this?”

“Nothing is real, but everything is. Makes sense so far.” Pidge nodded. “I’m sure there’s more, though.”

“Uh, kind of?” Lance rubbed the back of his hand. “Like… okay, think of Naruto and Harry Potter? And imagine, like, the Harry Potter world, but the Hidden Continent from Naruto exists in the Pacific Ocean or something. So that would be a fusion verse in one manner. It exists on the metaphorical border between the Naruto and Harry Potter multiverses. In this particular dimension, Naruto and Harry Potter are NOT fictional to one another. However, in other Naruto universes, there is a _potential_ for Harry Potter to exist in some way, shape, or form, as a work of fiction. In other Harry Potter universes, Naruto almost definitely exists as a work of fiction, if not until post-canon since I’m pretty sure Naruto didn’t start being written until after the final battle in Deathly Hallows. But not if the Harry Potter dimension in question is an AU of some sort where Naruto couldn't logically exist. So, like, a Film Noir AU of Harry Potter isn't going to have Naruto exist as a fictional entity, but a modern AU of Naruto is likely going to have Harry Potter exist as a fictional entity.”

“Does anyone else’s head hurt a little?” Keith asked.

“Shhh,” Pidge hissed. “I’ll explain it later if you want, but I’m actually getting all this.”

“There’s, uh, not much else, so—”

“No, wait, shut up. What about universes where the local geopolitical context is so entirely divorced from another world’s baseline that it’s almost impossible for the stories to remain intact?”

Lance tilted his head. Now _he_ was lost. “What?”

Pidge considered for a moment. “…how could Lord of the Rings have other multiverses as a fictional entity if a significant number of multiverses use a geopolitical structure based on that which already exists on our planet. Harry Potter, Bleach, and… fucking, I don’t know, Iron Man. All three use our planet, our continents, and our political history as a setting. Previously, I’d say that that’s because that was what registered as ‘real’ to the author, and was thus the most sensible setting to use, instead of creating an entirely new one the way One Piece, Naruto, or Lord of the Rings does. So, how would a universe like Lord of the Rings play host to fictional variants of multiple multiverses with the same basic setting in that sense, assuming they didn’t connect the worlds the way that fanfiction would?”

“I think I actually hate you right now,” Keith said simply. “Like, legitimately.”

Lance frowned. He glanced over at the void, hoping for an answer instead of having to wing it.

“I’m still wondering what this has to do with the… artwork,” Shiro said stiffly.

“Lance, what are you doing?” Pidge demanded. “Come on, you said you were going to explain what the fuck is going on, so—”

“I’m _trying_ ,” Lance said, not looking away from the void spot.

“…how?” Hunk asked, just a tad nervously.

“I stare into the void, and the void stares back,” Lance drawled. “But no, seriously, give me a sec so I can try to get Pidge’s answers.”

“Are you mind-melding with the void?” Hunk asked after a long moment.

“Kinda,” Lance said, then waved a hand for everyone to shut up.

After a minute or so, he sat back, rubbing at his temples. “Ow.”

“Ow?” someone echoed.

“ _Ow,_ ” Lance repeated emphatically. “I have Pidge’s answers, at least.”

“Let’s hear it!”

“Right, so… standard Lord of the Rings universes and UA-style AUs aren't going to have most of what we know as fiction existing in them, since they don't have the same context as we do in terms of countries and what counts as ‘real,’ but they exist in most modern-parallel universes as fictional entities. In modern AUs of LotR, all non-LotR fictions that we know probably exist. But like… LotR AUs of fiction works are likely to exist as the ‘canon’ works in LotR. So that LotR AU of Naruto that we saw on that one cover? That has a chance of existing as a fictive work in LotR, but rather than being a one-off AU of the manga, it's their canon.”

“Holy _shit,_ ” Pidge whispered, entirely too gleeful.

“Aaaaaaaaaand if a verse has a specific twist, like A/B/O or soulmate marks or magic or something, then that twist reflects across what default form of their canons for other verses and their fanfiction stats. So, like, Naruto's default form isn't a soulmate AU, as far as we know. _But_ in a Harry Potter dimension that happens to be a soulmate AU, Naruto will either not exist, or will exist with a soulmate AU structure overlaid onto it as the canon form.”

Slav attempted to help. "Just imagine the branch of a needle-tree, except each needle is also a branch with its own needles, and each of those needles is a branch, and so on forever, except each of those branches is a universe and each needle is an adjacent derivative universe and also each branch is actually an infinite planar disc intersecting with all of the other ones at the same time. Simple really."

“Oh!” Coran brightened. “That makes much more sense.”

“Everything. I hate _everything_ ,” Keith declared.

“Can someone _please_ explain what this has to do with the completely inappropriate picture?” Shiro demanded.

There was an underlying vibe of ‘whose ass do I have to kick for doing this?’

 “When I say I’m interacting with the void, I mean that I’m kind of… breaking the fourth wall?” Lance shrank in on himself a little. “And the void spot is kind of like… the point that other verses are using to see in?”

“It’s a metaphorical camera,” Pidge realized.

“Yeah, basically. Or at least, it was? I think? And now it’s… more. I mean, I’ve known for a while that we have an episodic structure to our lives, that much was obvious, but the longer I’m around it, the more I sort of… know. About the rest. I mean, I didn’t know at the beginning how the omniverse worked. Like, fuck that. I just knew that there was something watching me, that nobody else could see that something, and that there was an audience on the other side.” Lance scratched the back of his head. “And that Blue wasn’t bothered by it, so it wasn’t malicious.”

“And you didn’t think to bring it up?” Allura demanded.

“You saw what happened when I finally did! You all thought I was being an asshole!”

“Or going crazy,” Hunk offered.

“Yeah, or that.” Lance gestured at Hunk. “Anyway, recently it’s been… _more_. Like, I get glimpses? Of what the reactions on the other side are like?”

“Is this why you mentioned the ‘thousands of screaming fangirls’ thing?” Keith asked.

“Yeah. It’s… it was a little overwhelming for a while, but like? It kept changing? Until suddenly I was seeing the effects of the fandom instead of just getting direct screaming-into-ear stuff?” Lance shrugged a little helplessly. “And then I started seeing stuff like, you know, what the actual fanworks were. Which is where I get my estimated statistics for other dimensions in our multiverse from, actually. I look at how many of those fanfics there are total, and how many of them are for whatever couple? And it’s not going to be a perfect estimate, of course, because people write what they prefer, but it gives a general idea of how things trend across dimensions?”

“And that brings us full circle to today,” Pidge said. “Huh. That actually almost makes sense.”

“The picture. Explanation. Now.”

Lance looked over at Shiro and squinted a little. That was. Huh. “It’s not self-explanatory?”

“No.”

“…I don’t even know where to…” Lance looked over to Pidge.

“Like a decent ten percent of any fandom is going to be straight-up porn,” Pidge said flatly. “Even if the ages aren’t necessarily at adulthood, the fact that it’s fiction mean people bend things a lot.”

“And our ages weren’t known until long after people had already made their decisions.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, plus, how many of the people making the erotic stuff do you think are actually the same age as us? Because the answer is ‘a lot.’ A lot of the people drawing nsfw stuff of me are also seventeen-ish.”

“How do you even—”

“The void is insistent and inconsistent.” Lance said tightly. “Also currently bouncing on my head.”

It was kind of uncomfortable.

It was, of course, even _more_ uncomfortable when the void disgorged a bunch of fanart on him.

“ _This isn’t helping!_ ” He protested, flailing a little and pushing the void away. “What the shit? What the _shit?_ ”

“At least none of it’s creepily pornographic this time?” Pidge offered, poking through the pile. “Which, yeah, I get what you’re saying about it not being creepy from their perspective; as far as they’re concerned, none of this real and we’re all fictional.”

“And we never should have seen this in the first place,” Lance added. “Nobody gets hurt in their view, because… well, nobody’s breaking the laws of time and space the way I am, as far as they know. I would _still_ prefer to not see it, and not have anyone else see it.”

Shiro looked like he was trying to tamp down on another angry outburst, which… yeah, okay, Lance could see where he was coming from. If the picture had been of Pidge or something, Lance would probably just as protectively furious as Shiro was about this.

“So we’re all just buying this as fact?” Keith asked. “Nobody’s going to question the fact that Lance says we’re all fictional and that he can break the fourth wall?”

“I mean…” Pidge gestured at the flood of artwork on Lance, the couch, and the floor. “I’m pretty sure Lance doesn’t have the time, skill, or resources to do this as a prank. There’s like eighty pictures here, each one in a pretty distinct style, and it’s almost all been drawn digitally? Like, who the fuck has the time to do that as a prank, and _without_ digital art supplies of any sort on hand?”

“I’d like to point out that the part you should really be questioning is how it got here in the first place. I don’t know how to make a pocket dimension. I can’t do the physics things like you guys, I just— _stop_. _Stop_ with the zooming in on my face, I can’t actually _see_ past you.” Lance pushed the void spot away.

It went back to bouncing on his head.

Lance buried his face in his hands and groaned.

“This is really gay,” Pidge said, looking at one of the prints. “Like, _really_ fucking gay.”

“If it’s more porn, I don’t want to see it,” Lance mumbled through his hands.

“It’s super safe for work, and it’s not erotic, just really fucking cute. And gay. So gay, my dude, I can’t even… wow. Just wow.” Pidge laughed. “Hey, Keith, wanna see something funny?”

**Author's Note:**

> Might do more short scenes when I'm bored.


End file.
